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The International Breast Cancer Research Foundation is currently in its 17th year. We are committed to practical, cost-effective, breakthrough research that takes advantage of the most promising opportunities and ideas everywhere in the world. This research – especially clinical research – holds the key to understanding, preventing and curing breast cancer.
As a physician, Dr. Richard Love of the University of Wisconsin had become increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress in combating breast cancer. Research in the United States had become both a low priority and prohibitively expensive. His concern was shared by a number of other cancer physicians and in 1993 they founded the International Breast Cancer Research Foundation (IBCRF).
The high ethical standards of IBCRF research were recognized by the award of the 1997 Westerman Prize in Clinical Research Ethics from the American Federation for Medical Research.
GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH IS AN INVESTMENT IN AMERICAN'S HEALTH
Each year, 1.5 million women in the world are diagnosed with breast cancer. Approximately one hundred eighty-two thousand of them live in the United States.
As difficult as it is to comprehend those figures, what lies behind them is something that cannot be reduced to a cold, hard fact:
The pain and suffering of those women and that of their families. It is, quite simply, immeasurable. It is also something that we believe you also understand all too well.
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Bangladeshi girl -- a daughter of a patient in our Primary Breast Care Clinic in Bagerhat, Bangladesh | |
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HOW BREAST CANCER RESEARCH IN AFRICA AND ASIA IS HELPING AMERICANS
In 1993, Dr. Richard Love began a clinical trial in breast cancer treatments for Vietnamese women, which has led to significant findings for women with breast cancer everywhere. “In the U.S., our standards for breast cancer care have come about by studying European backgrounds – those that are well nourished and upper middle class. Only by studying other populations can we better learn how different individuals of different ethnicities handle medicine.”
Dr. Love’s work was largely influenced by the global standard use of hormonal therapy among pre-menopausal women with breast cancer, and the results of his trials has led to new hypotheses about how hormone therapies work in fighting breast cancer. “We are thinking differently about how treatments work, and if we are right, it will change the way we think about how to control cancers, especially breast cancer. And this all came about because of foreign circumstances.”
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Children in Dhaka on the National
Freedom Holiday February 20, 2009 |
An investment in global health research – especially in the area of breast cancer – is an investment in Americans’ health and well being. Discovering better treatments, and ways to prevent breast cancer I know is a high priority for Americans,” says Dr. Love.
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